Although there is an immense amount of literature on the 'Final Solution' - the Nazis' attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe during the Second World War - many critical questions still remain unresolved. The authoritative essays in The Final Solution set out to clarify the origins of the attempted genocide of the Jews, and to provide new answers to this period of history which often seems inexplicable.The book draws on important new evidence, much of it from archives in Eastern Europe which have only recently become accessible. Contributors are among the leading experts in the field. The essays focus on the preconditions and antecedents for the 'Final Solution' and the immediate origins of the decision to murder Europe's Jewish population. They consider, too, the impact of the German invasion of Russia in June 1941 on the evolution of a genocidal policy and the response of the peoples and governments in Germany, occupied Europe, the Free World and the Jewish communities under the Nazis and in the West.The results of this study are often controversial. The essays challenge many accepted notions about the behaviour of the German Army, how much the Germans knew, and the response of the non-Jewish population in Occupied Europe and the West.The Final Solution will be of great interest to students of modern European history. It will also make invaluable reading for anyone seeking to understand further this most tragic chapter of recent history.

Notes on contributors

Acknowledgements

Introduction

p. 1

Volksgemeinschaft, 'Aryanization' and the Holocaust

p. 33

Euthanasia and the Final Solution

p. 51

The idea of the Final Solution and the role of experts

p. 62

Himmler, the architect of genocide

p. 73

The relation between Operation Barbarossa as an ideological war of extermination and the Final Solution

p. 85

Wehrmacht, Einsatzgruppen, Soviet POWs and anti-Bolshevism in the emergence of the Final Solution

p. 103

Operation Barbarossa and the origins of the Final Solution

p. 119

Hitler and the euphoria of victory: the path to the Final Solution

p. 137

The response of Polish Jewry to the Final Solution

p. 151

The Holocaust in Lithuania: some unique aspects

p. 159

Types of Genocide? Croatians, Serbs and Jews, 1941-5

p. 175

How far did Vichy France 'sabotage' the imperatives of Wannsee?

p. 194

German public awareness of the Final Solution

p. 215

Rescue through statehood: the American Zionist response to the Holocaust

p. 228

Different worlds: British perceptions of the Final Solution during the Second World War

p. 246

Enmity, indifference or cooperation: the Allies and Yishuv's rescue activists